Interview by Daniel Jackson, June 21, 2007

When did you arrive at the 449th?

I gotta put my thinking cap on. That was a long time ago!

Do you remember where you were stationed when you got there?

Yeah, at Chengkung [Chenggong].

What were the living facilities and food like?

The food was good because I turned out to be mess officer after I was there about two weeks. I flew fifty missions in the P-38 over China and Indochina and Thailand.

You also flew over the Hump to ferry Lightnings to China?

Yeah. I made about three trips over the Hump. One time we were ferrying about six P-38s to India and on takeoff at Myitkyina one of our pilots lost an engine and he had to crash land. He was ok, but the plane was destroyed.

How did flying the Hump compare with the combat missions you flew?

Well, flying the Hump was kind of treacherous, but we made it alright. We had a B-24 escort us doing the navigating while we kind of tacked on and just followed him in.

Did you have any run-ins with weather on any of these flights?

We didn’t run into any combat aircraft. Down in south China, around – golly, I’ve even forgotten the name of it. But down around Canton – that’s on South China Sea area – and Hainan Island, which was right off the coast of southern China. We ran into quite a bit of opposition in that area.

Do you remember when or what those missions were like down in south China?

Well, there’s quite a few to remember. But they were like airdrome sweeps; we’d go in and try to destroy the aircraft on the ground before they could get in the air. We had several of those down around Canton – south China. The biggest one we ran into was at Hainan Island when they sent up possibly twenty to thirty aircraft to intercept us. But I think we outscored ‘em on destroying aircraft that day. That was one big mission that we flew in on.

Was that the Hainan Island raid in January 1945 or July 1944?

Probably July of ’44 because ’45 that was just about all over [unintelligible] because August of ’45 is when the war ended.

Right. There was a big mission to Hainan Island on July 29, 1944 and another one on January 5, 1945.

That’s about right. That should be about right.

You were also involved in the last mission where the squadron encountered enemy aircraft during July of ’45 when you and your wingman were attacked by four Japanese Oscars. Do you remember that mission at all?

I do indeed! Yes sir. My wingman and I, we were down on the deck looking for railroad engines and that’s when the four Oscars came in on us. Luckily, we came back with just my wingman having one engine shot out. We made it back to base. I just had to escort him and ward off the Japanese Oscars. They must have been low on gas or something because they never followed up to try and catch us.

That must have been pretty scary to have been caught low, outnumbered.

Oh, that was a pain in the butt because we were outnumbered, you know, two-to-one – four Oscars. That was their latest aircraft. You really should never get caught with your pants down – or your flaps down, so they say. But we made it back alright without any casualties though – just the two of us.

Do you remember any of the missions you flew out of Yunnanyi?

Yunnanyi was – there was another squadron there and I’m not too sure, I believe it was the 16th Fighter Squadron? [sic] They flew mostly P-40s. I had a few missions in P-40s there from Yunnanyi because that was the westernmost used airport for the 449th. And – I think it was the 16th Fighter Squadron, I’m not sure. They were in our group though. They were in the 51st Group. We did fly into Thailand. That was another big mission where they sent up about a dozen [sic] “Nates.” They were a wheels-down type of fighter. They were maneuverable as hell, but slow as hell!

That must have been an interesting contrast with P-38s being pretty fast and “Nates” being pretty slow?

Yeah, it was interesting. I think we got our share. One fella in this other squadron – I think it was the 16th if I’m not mistaken – last they heard of him he says, “I’ve got one trapped in the valley down here!” And that was the last we ever heard of him. On that mission we had eight P-38s and about eight ‘40s and ‘51s. And one of our P-38 guys kind of panicked because there was a “Nate” on his tail. And he held the mic button down and was hollering into the mic, “Somebody get this Jap off my ass!” And he got his right wingtip tank caught on fire from the action. And our flight leader at the time was Dale Desper – it was Captain Dale Desper, D – E – S – P – E – R. He said, “Well if you’ll stop it in midair,” he says, “I’ll get out and piss on it for you.” He was madder than hell because he had to leave the fight and head back to base and escort – the pilot he escorted was Flomer, F – L – O – M – E – R. They got back to base ok, no problem, but Desper, the flight leader, was so pissed off because he had to pull out of the scrap and escort this guy back. So a couple of good memories, you know, lucked out.

What were the facilities like at Yunnanyi compared to Chenggong?

Very much the same. They had decent mess halls. I know the flight surgeon stood there at the doorway and you had to take your atabrine to prevent malaria. Before you could go in the mess hall, they’d always make you take your atabrine. We were starting to look like the Chinese – a little bit yellow around the gills! Atabrine would make you discolored toward the yellow.

How did those facilities compare with Mengzi, later in the war?

Later in the war in Mengzi we really had no ready room. We just had, like there was an ambulance that was used as a tower for us for the takeoff and landing. It was really very primitive. We slept in tents and it was primitive compared to Chengkung and Yunnanyi. At both places we had decent barracks and it was a decent mess hall.

The unit records mention you specifically on several bridge missions. Do you remember how you guys would attack the bridge and what happened exactly?

Well, because the B-25s weren’t quite as accurate, they had P-38s go in with two five-hundred-pounders or two thousand-pound bombs. And they would send us on skip-bombing missions where you’d go in, pass the target on the way down at a high altitude, and then drop down on the deck and go over the river – or whatever the bridge was there for – and go hop over that and just before you hopped over, you dropped your bombs and then they would skip-bomb into the abutments of the bridges. And that’s the way we were able to do more damage than the ‘25s from a medium altitude – since we were right on the deck, just aim the damn airplane towards the bridge and let ‘er go, you know? They would skip off the water or the ground and then it had a three- to five-second delay used on it – not very much time to get your ass over the bridge and back down on the deck! We ran quite a few of those missions.

Your squadron was fairly successful at taking out bridges then?

Yeah, bridges and sampans – we’d go down to Hanoi and Haiphong, the harbor at Haiphong. We did pretty well on getting the larger sampans that haul Japanese troops up and down the coast. We did a pretty good job on the air-to-ground type support and we also supported some of Stilwell’s campaign in Burma. He was coming down from northern Burma into the southern area. We did some air-to-ground. The funniest one that we had was we had one BT-15 in the squadron and we used that one and there were four L-5s – little puddle jumpers – and four P-38s and a C-47 transport. The four P-38s escorted all these mother hens and the extra little L-5s that went. They were picking up – the L-5s had to go in there to land, they were the only things that could land because there was no runway. There was just a grass levelled area. And they were picking up Foreign Legion espionage people that had been held prisoner down in Hanoi, but they were released. And then that’s what we were doing, was picking them up to bring them into Mengzi. That was an interesting mission with the C-47, the BT-15, the L-5s, and the P-38s. It was kind of like a circus!

That’s quite the range of aircraft!

Well, it was the only way we could get in. We escorted all of them. We had to do 360 circles around the whole group going into this place – I can’t remember the name of the little village where we landed – well we didn’t land, I was flying a P-38. But the little L-5s had to land on this real small little grass strip. And that’s how we got the French Foreign Legion spies out of there.

Do you remember when about that mission took place?

That was early ’45, before the war ended.

Are there any other missions that stand out in your memory? Did you fly any to Tengchong?

Well I can’t really be too specific there because the missions we ran, we ran an awful lot of missions trying to help Stilwell’s campaign because the Chinese wouldn’t do much fighting unless they had air support, which is what we did was air-to-ground support to the Chinese troops. No discredit to the Chinese, they were outnumbered too, but they needed a little backup help from the aircraft, which is what we did. But I can’t specifically remember a date or any activity that happened. Now, there was air-to-air activity involved, but nothing of any significant consequence.

I had read that the Chinese didn’t have any heavy artillery, so you guys were pretty much providing that heavy fire support for them.

Yeah, we did. That’s why I say that Stilwell needed some air support so his Chinese troops – he had a lot of Chinese troops – they were hesitant to continue fighting on the front lines unless they had air support.

Well, I very much appreciate your time sir! I’m hoping to finish this project this summer.

Well in the meantime, if you can just mail me a little questionnaire. Do you have my home address? My current address, I’m living with my son because my wife passed away about a month ago.

Oh, I’m sorry.

Well, I’ll tell you what; let me have your address and I’ll mail something to you. It was good talking to you and I’ll just send you something – maybe a couple of pictures and stuff like that if you’d like.

Ok, I’d appreciate that, sir, thank you very much!

Alright, my friend, and good luck to you!

Thank you very much, sir, you have a nice day!

Ok, bye bye.